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Comment section less prominent

└ posted on Sunday, 24 April 2011, by Novil

I have worked on the comment section since I was no longer happy with various aspects of it. In my opinion, comments are suppossed to accompany the main post, not to make up 90% of the vertical page size. But having to click through 10 pages of 5 comments is also very annoying. Our advertisers would also not like to pay for so many useless page views. Therefore the comment section is now hidden by default. To show it, a click on the “Click here to see the comments!” link beneath the comic description or the news post is needed. My mom, as ultimate authority, really likes the new system so I certainly will keep it.

All comments made during the last weeks are back online. However, I have to say that I’m somewhat annoyed with the reaction of some readers. I think it’s very unfair that I was heavily criticized for trying to improve two strips that many readers didn’t understand or liked. It is a sad fact that on the internet, criticism is often blown out or proportion (“WORST! STRIP! EVER!”) or descents into personal attacks very fast. I also got a very angry e-mail by a long-term reader and commentor who though I had banned him, although I have not banned anybody during the last weeks.

There are also some good news, though:

– Sandra and Woo will update three times next week, on Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

– I axed a large chunk of semi-funny ideas for future strips after the current storyline in my idea document, and replaced them with much funnier ones.

Click here to see the comments!

Discussion (15)¬

Criticism comes with the trade, and any artist is going to receive some on their work. That criticism is sometimes right, sometimes not, and there’s no need to have a knee-jerk reaction to all of it. It’s also understandable that there will be some bad comics, and you just learn from them; you don’t always need to instantly go back and make it all look perfect. Still, we can all agree there’s a boundary that goes into personal offense. I never personally saw comments I recognized as “offensive”, but I can take your word for it. Perhaps appointing a fan you trust as a volunteer “comment-moderator” to keep discussion insightful could make your job easier.

Hey Novil. I like the new layout of the site and agree with your decision to hide the comments section. I read many different webcomics. Some use this type of layout and some don’t. To me this version is better since the other choice tends to clutter up the page fairly quick and also makes for longer loading times. Thumbs up! 🙂

About the changes to the comics. I was one of the readers who didn’t get the one where Sandra and Cloud talks about Larisa’s bad judgement. Thus the altered version of the strip was a big improvement to me. Now it made sense. Thumbs up again. 😉

That’s where the ‘net comes into it’s own. Here you can have a dialogue between the artist and the reader. That’s pretty difficult in a normal dead-tree comic. I realize though that going back and correcting something – being it a comic, novel or anything else – is highly controversial at the best of times(ret-conning is even more controversial though), but I believe that this time it was the right thing to do since many readers simply didn’t get it.

Ultimately it’s your creation so you have the right to do so if you feel it should be done. It was a brave thing to do nonetheless.

@ Strife:
Well, the comments certainly aren’t better than the actual comic, but they aren’t usually horrible either. I mean, some commenters realize subtle details in the comic that you may have missed out on. Other commenters can have a pretty good sense of humor, and many hilarious (at least in my opinion) comments have been posted in the past. If a strip was a little unclear of something, then sometimes commenters will explain whatever was unclear. Not to mention comments also show you aren’t alone in enjoying the comic, and give a reason to check the site even on days when you know no new strips are appearing.
I mean, the comments help me enjoy the comic even more, but each to their own, I guess.

@Novil: Glad you put commenting back; I was afraid it would be gone forever.
I’ve got no problem with the new setup, since it makes sense that not every reader will bother with comments :p
But when you say you were criticized for trying to make improvements to existing strips – do you mean in e-mail, or have those comments been removed/hidden? The only criticism I saw was of the original content of the strips. Personally, I’ve got absolutely no qualms about correcting mistakes and making improvements – especially since you’ve always been honest and left a message whenever you’ve done that.
I don’t think most the comments on the recent arc were meant to be insulting or ranting. Many of them seemed from readers who were genuinely confused as to what was happening in the strips (both the ones about the eagle and about the meadow). Only a few comments actually seemed to be pulling personal attacks, and those got downvoted rather quickly. Forgive me if there were any really bad comments that were removed before I saw them.
Personally, I try to take a positive outlook even when people say negative things about my works – if someone points out a flaw, I take it as constructive criticism and correct the mistake, and avoid repeating it in the future. If someone sounds entirely unreasonable, of course, I don’t feel the need to even care about it. Sometimes I find it funny when someone tries to discredit an entire work of mine, on the basis of a minor flaw. It only really bothers me when harsh criticism comes from a friend. If I don’t know someone personally, and they don’t know me personally, it’s easier to avoid getting bothered by their negative comments, but still very beneficial to take whatever suggestions and constructive criticisms I can from them.

Also, as Katana suggested, a comment moderator or two might be a good idea if possible. That will keep trolls from spoiling the comments with negativity, without you having to worry that some possible troll is trying to ruin others’ enjoyment of your comic.

>>I axed a large chunk of semi-funny ideas for future strips after the current storyline in my idea document, and replaced them with much funnier ones.<<

This sounds kind of "If'y"I don't mind the occasional "Giggle" strip (A one shot, one time strip that makes you laugh) but I much prefer story arcs like the one you have running currently. They lend themselves to a better deeper quality of humor,character development and expression.
It sounds a bit like you might be falling for the siren song of the easy laugh, rather than the good story.
I'm here because I like the characters, and the story, as well as the artwork. I'm not going anyplace you and the characters don't take me. But I'd enjoy the journey a lot less if S&W becomes a "vaudeville act" rather than a "story hour."

Actually, to add to my last post – I have just a small qualm about the hidden-by-default thing. Is it in any way possible to have a cookie store a user’s default preference for whether or not they want comments shown? That would be the better of both worlds – people who don’t care about comments will have them hidden by default, but people who do care about the comments would have the option to make them shown by default.
Because under the current system, to check if new comments have been posted, one must first refresh the page, then scroll up to the “show comments” button (as the browser will leave you scrolled down if you were scrolled down before refreshing), click it, and then scroll back down to the actual comments.
Under the previous system, all it took to see new comments was simply refreshing the page.

I realize this is only an issue for people who care about the comments, but judging by the fact that many people still comment, it’s not like there’s only a handful of us. The solution would entail adding a cookie which stores a user’s preference for hiding/showing comments. If a user clicks the “Show comments” button, it would thereafter show the comments by default for that user. If the user clicks a “hide comments” button (which I realized currently does not exist), it would return their default to having the comments hidden.
I understand if you do not have the option to do this because of your host or any limitations of the configurability of your website, and I also understand if you can’t implement this because you are too busy or otherwise do not see it worthwhile to do so. I’m just giving this as a suggestion, because I realized that the change actually does bother me, and I imagine it may also bother other commenters.

I realize though that going back and correcting something – being it a comic, novel or anything else – is highly controversial at the best of times

I guess it’s a much bigger deal for readers than for me. I’m re-writing the dialog of most strips several times before they get published, sometimes on the day before publishing. So correcting something is not really controversial to me.

Hey, just started reading this, went past it all in about 3 hours. Pretty nice comic, and the first one i ever saw in which the quality change from the first to current isn’t that drastic (you seem to have perfected you drawing style to your own liking!) as well as developing a nice story. It seems you skipped a few, though (Lily’s, the guy at the factory, etc.)